


C-beams off the Tannhauser Gate

by The_Carnivorous_Muffin



Series: Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Depression, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Friendship, Master of Death Harry Potter, Suicide Attempt, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 16:51:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15778158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin
Summary: Emotional Support Lee's initial attempt of death by river fails and she's left to wander and find a new means of either fulfilling her existence or dying. She meets a few interesting people along the way.





	1. C-beams off the Tannhauser Gate

“Oh, I’m still alive, imagine that.” She said this weakly, water still in her lungs and the touch of death still on her lips, but she still said it which was more than she imagined possible.

 

The river was strangely gentle as it lapped by her, having deposited her on the sun baked river bank, the black stones warm against her back in the summer sun, and in the sky there wasn’t a single cloud in sight but instead only blue and that single blinding eye that was the sun.

 

She was too weak to move, to either roll herself back into the river or else climb up the bank and into the trees so instead she stayed and stared at the sky and wondering what aspect of this fracturing thing called reality was actively working against her.

 

She did not necessarily believe in fate or God or destiny but she did have the suspicion that she had only managed to survive thus far because something still wanted her living. The other clones did not have this problem. Most in Orochimaru’s service were short lived at best, either dying in his experiments, or else being fed to his summons.

 

There were a few that had lasted longer, but whose purpose lasted longer. The clone who acted as a lab assistant would be needed for years to come and that clone had come to terms with the situation because the job was half finished but one day would be. The clones who had survived Orochimaru’s experimentation faced similar situations, they survived, but one day Orochimaru would dispose of them when they were no longer necessary.

 

But she was different. Her purpose had no end, where the others had signs to mark their progress towards a definable goal she stayed and stagnated, because it was clear that Orochimaru could not be made to change.

 

The greatest nightmare to a clone was not death, was not a lack of existence, but a life whose purpose is both meaningless and infinite.

 

In her case, upon realizing the futility of her task, upon looking into the future and seeing an eternity badgering the snake sannin without hope of him ever hearing her words she had stared into the face of madness.

 

She had stood above him, looked down into those indifferent golden slitted eyes, and realized that she could not hope to kill him with her power (and that killing him was not a solution only an act of desperation), if she killed herself then another clone would be created to take her place, and so she had done the only thing she had left.

 

But it hadn’t worked.

 

Because if she had succeeded then she would be dead already, gone, back to whatever it was clones were before they existed.

 

And she was lost, meaningless and purposeless, an existence without a foreseeable end to it, staring at the sky and feeling lead in her limbs and a feeling emptiness welling within her. Because now she must ask herself that question that humans asked so frequently, but one which never crossed the lips of a clone, what do I do now?

 

“Oh God,” She began in a hoarse voice, closing her eyes and reaching out to this ineffable being which warped the universe to his demands, “I have long since reached the end of my usefulness and necessity. Do not let me wander in the dark without meaning. Please, end me.”

 

Only the sound of the river and the cries of birds answered her.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, are you alright?”

 

It had been one day.

 

She opened her eyes to find a boy looking down at her in concern, adolescent probably around Minato’s age or perhaps a little older, he was in that awkward transition phase where baby fat stubbornly clung to his face while parts of him grew faster than others making for a half-baked look.

 

Dark hair, skin tanned from working in the sun, dark eyes and a weak chakra signature at best. A civilian in the land of fire, but given that when she had first thrown herself in the river she had drifted for some time it might still be quite far from Konoha.

 

He looked concerned, on edge, not quite sure what to do and how to help and her silence was making him uncomfortable. Orochimaru always preferred silence, the ability to sink into his work and forget the world twisting and turning around him, and it had always been maddening to watch because every time he did so her goal was further and further from reach.

 

(All he had to do was leave. Meet up with Jiraiya, go get lunch with Senju Tobirama who always showed his face in the laboratory, just show some sort of effort or will to step forward… He never did.)

 

Finally, she said, “I am waiting to die.”

 

She didn’t like causing others discomfort, her reason for existing after all was to push others (Orochimaru) forward emotionally, to see them through difficult times in their own lives. However, having already failed miserably in her objective, she saw little harm in being honest.

 

“What? Why would you…”

 

“I have no reason to exist.” She interrupted calmly, “I am without purpose or reason and I find it unbearable.”

 

She regretted the words almost as soon as she said them.

 

(Regret, she didn’t like it, but she felt it so often if only because it is her purpose to be aware of the feelings of others and to take them into consideration and it was so very easy to misstep and say the wrong thing. You can never say what you mean or what you feel, only what you must, and now that she had more or less given up on her existence she found this grating.)

 

“You must have something worth living for! I… Everybody has something… Family, friends…” He seemed almost desperate for her, but he was still uncomfortable, there was a basket of fish over his shoulder. He had been returning from fishing in the morning, he had not expected to find what he saw as a little girl expressing her wish to die. He was tired, sore, he wished his day wasn’t going like this, she was inconvenient, it would be best for them both if he simply left but his morals wouldn’t stand for that.

 

She cut him off once again, “I am without father, without mother, without brother, without sister. I have no kin, I have no friends, I have no ties to the material world beyond a single solitary mission which I have no hope of accomplishing.”

 

“I’m not going to leave you here.” And there was a steely glint in his eyes, as if he truly meant this, and it probably would let him sleep at night better. There was also that nagging suspicion in her own head, that once again something was intervening, something was refusing to allow her to follow through.

 

“Suit yourself.” She said finally, closing her eyes once again and waiting for death to come to her.

 

“Aren’t you going to sit up?” He asked.

 

“I didn’t say I would help.” She commented drily before adding, “It would probably be better for you in the long run if you just took the fish home instead; if you can’t carry us both.”

 

“You are not worth less than fish!” He spat, as if this was the most insulting thing he had ever heard.

 

She opened her eyes with a sigh, stared at him once again, and tried to think of a way to convince him that she really was. “I’m not human.”

 

“What?”

 

“I’m a replication of a human, a clone.” She waited for it to sink in, this shinobi concept of copying a person to a shallow degree.

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“I may have the heartbeat, the lungs, everything you need to be human but ultimately I’m just an imperfect facsimile designed for a single purpose and disposed of afterwards. Unfortunately, I’ve been handed an impossible task and am thus completely and utterly without worth. So, yes, I would expect you to take the goddamn fish and go home because I am supposed to be dead already!”

 

The son of a bitch put down the fish and carried her like a sack of potatoes all the way to his home. When he left and returned with the fish, half of them had been eaten by wild animals, although it went against her very nature to point out his flaws she couldn’t help but say, “I told you so, dumbass.”

 

* * *

 

He insisted she eat, wasted the food on her saying his father wouldn’t be home until the month was out so it would be alright even when he could have sold it at the market. On the one hand, eating would prolong what should have been inevitable, but on the other hand every time she tried to die something intervened.

 

After realizing how much distress it would cause him if she refused it with great trepidation she began eating, feeling the nourishment running through her and hating every moment of it.

 

“So, what’s your name anyway?” He asked with his mouth half full, staring at her as if he was truly interested in the answer.

 

She was about to answer with her standard, cheerful, proclamation of “I’m Eru Lee and I like supporting Orochimaru through emotionally difficult times in his life!” but something stopped her. That feeling of dread in her stomach that, no, she didn’t like doing that because it could not be done. How could you have feelings about the impossible, so instead she decided to be more or less candid.

 

“I don’t have a name.”

 

“You have to have a name, everyone has a…”

 

“I’m a clone.” She responded, cutting him off before he could finish, and when she saw that this still failed to mean anything to him she added, “We don’t have names.”

 

“Clone, you keep saying that, what does that mean?” He asked.

 

“Shinobi can create images of themselves out of elements, they use them for various tasks, and they call them clones.” It was the closest she could come to explaining the concept to someone who wasn’t already a shinobi.

 

“Shinobi… You’re a shinobi then?”

 

Her eyes narrowed, and if she wasn’t designed for emotional support she would have long since lost her temper, “No, I’m a clone of a shinobi.”

 

“Does she look like you, then? With the hair and the eyes and…” He trailed off, waving his hand and trying to fit all of Eru Lee’s distinctive features within it and failing miserably. She didn’t bother to respond but he apparently answered himself because he asked then, “Does she have a name?”

 

“Eru Lee.”

 

“Eru… Lee, that’s not, well it’s an odd name for a girl.” He smiled then and said, “Should I call you Lee-chan, then?”

 

She wasn’t supposed to have feelings about that sort of thing, but then, who had ever asked her what she would prefer to be called? Shinobi didn’t ask their clones those sort of existential questions and she referred that; it was easier that way. But this boy, the closest thing she had to Orochimaru and supporting him, desperately needed for her to have a name.

 

But she wouldn’t… couldn’t, go by Eru Lee. There was only one Eru Lee, and she was brilliant and blinding, a cosmic center that they all orbited from the moment they were created. To use her name, to take her name, would be equivalent to slandering the name of god.

 

“Her mother was called Yuri, you can call me that.” She said, rather than explaining English and the name Lily to the boy.

 

“Yuri-chan, alright, it… I think it suits you.”

 

* * *

 

The next morning she insisted she leave, if only because being around him while waiting for death was exhausting, because she kept itching to provide emotional support.

 

To reassure him that his father loved him, that his mother who had died in childbirth had loved him without even needing to see his face, that he was doing well and that his life was worth living.

 

That he was kind and simple and good in a way that most shinobi would never learn to be and he only had to see it in himself.

 

It was a constant need, push forward, help them, let them see in themselves what you can see.

 

But at the same time she did not want to be that pillar of strength, not when she needed to crumble, so before he could become attached and she could offer unwarranted advice she left and started walking in any and every direction.

 

* * *

 

A week later and she still was not dead.

 

* * *

 

Without food, water, or a map the clone made her way into the mountains where she would most likely be promised solitude and possibly a means of death. Certainly she felt it aching in the soles of her feet, dancing behind her eyelids, just waiting for them to close and let go.

 

But she was wary of the worn road, of those who traveled there, and while some might show no hesitation in slitting her throat the vast majority would be uncomfortable with that situation and she would end up comforting some fisherman’s son again and eating his dinner.

 

So with what little will power and energy she had left she drove herself deeper and deeper into the wilderness leaving the path and all of her dreams of supporting Orochimaru behind.

 

Even if some small part of her, her shadow, still longed for that day when she might fulfill the purpose she had long since abandoned out of desperation. Some part of her, when she dreamed at night, still saw what he could have been if he had only tried and seen himself as she saw him.

 

You can be more than you are, Orochimaru, more than this lonely barren shade of a human being wasting his life in a laboratory. You, too, can find meaning if only you know how to look up from your experiments and search for it.

 

She wanted to scream it at him, did in her nightmares, but as in life he never did seem to hear her in the wilderness.

 

(And with every footstep she brought herself further and further away from that place, towards death and enlightenment, where she could wait for emptiness while staring into the sunset on the highest peak.)

 

The landscape changed, became rougher, barren, a stark and unforgiving place that was far different from Konoha. Sometimes, when her eyes met the trees, she felt as if they were watching her, out of dark eyes with gnarled fingers made of birch.

 

But for a while they were content to let her keep wandering deeper and deeper into the mountains.

 

Until they weren’t.

 

* * *

 

“You are very far from home, Konoha nin.”

 

It was dark, her hands were bound and seals had been etched onto her skin, the buzz of chakra was a distant hum and in the darkness she could hear the rustling of leaves. But in front of her she didn’t see the trees who dreamed of being men but instead a worn aged man with a spinning red eye.

 

Behind him a great black monolith loomed, a statue, or something that looked like a statue. Whatever it was it oozed menace and ill intent until the cavern seemed to be filled with nothing but that feeling.

 

“Are you going to kill me?” She asked, cutting to the heart of the matter, but he did not seem fazed if anything he was amused.

 

“No, I had planned to but recent political developments have caused me to change my mind.”

 

“Then I have no interest in you.” She cut him off, before he could say whatever it was he meant to say, this gave him more pause.

 

“You want to die?” He asked, to clarify.

 

“I have no meaning, no reason to exist, I must die.” She was so very tired of explaining this and at seeing the stupefied horror on the faces of those she explained it to. And then feeling the ache of their own pain, the pain she was designed to prevent. This man was more stone faced about it, had suffered so much that this seemed to be nothing to him, but even he paused at it.

 

“And if I could give you meaning?”

 

That was new, she looked up at him, this worn frail man on the verge of death and long past the verge of madness. There were so many things she wanted to say to him then, that he needed to hear, and each ached desperately on her tongue but she held it.

 

“It would be artificial at best.” She said with a small smile as his face dropped and then as if a wind was blowing through her and releasing all her tension she said what she meant to, “Of course, that’s the beauty of humanity. You don’t know what you want; you have to look for it. And it will hurt, you will suffer, you will grieve and bleed and watch everything die around you; but that’s what you were built for. Because beyond all grief and anger and hatred there is something worthy of that pain; if you can find it.”

 

He said nothing, looking suddenly shaken, as if she had said something he didn’t expect to hear and not from her.

 

“Do you know who I am, Eru Lee?” He finally asked, a rhetorical question because he answered it himself, “I am Uchiha Madara and I know that there is nothing this world can offer beyond pain and hatred. There is only one path to salvation; and Konoha is not it.”

 

And all at once, in spite of his name, she saw what this man represented. Haru had been the wrong choice, he was young and still yearned to prove himself, and in that he was so very different from Orochimaru. This man, who had betrayed his greatest friend and attempted to destroy the village, who now lived alone in the wilderness with madness in his eye; this man could play the part of Orochimaru.

 

“I’m Eru Lee and I like supporting Orochimaru through emotionally difficult times in his life…” She whispered to herself and then with new resolve, with new determination and hope, she faced this man again.

 

“Whatever it is you’re looking for, Madara-sama, even you know that you won’t find it here. There’s no such thing as going too far in this world, you can always turn back, and even if it hurts you will always know that it was real.” She smiled at him, her brightest grin, and though it wasn’t quite the result she was looking for perhaps it didn’t need to be. Perhaps Orochimaru didn’t need to leave his laboratory or Madara his cave, perhaps they only had to realize that someday they must, that they could not endure like this forever and they must return to what they turned their backs on.

 

Senju Hashirama would always be waiting.

 

“There was a dream that was Konoha. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile.” She leaned in close, intent, “I know that you won’t listen to me today. That whatever task you had planned for the true Eru Lee will not come to fruition through me and that you will still seek to fulfill it through her. I know that you won’t leave this place today or tomorrow. But you must remember, in your darkest moment, when all hope seems lost that you can still have faith in that dream. Konoha can still exist, so long as one person wishes for its existence it is not gone from this world.”

 

She continued, a sigh on her lips, having said all she needed to say and seen all she needed to see. It was not Orochimaru but it was enough, it must be enough. She leaned back and closed her eyes, reaching out with her suppressed chakra for loose stones on the floor, “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time… like tears in rain...”

 

She opened her eyes and with extraordinary concentration used the grabbing jutsu to slam a rock against her head and deliver the killing blow, “Time to die.”  


	2. Isn't the World Beautiful?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The saga of Emotional Support Lee continues as she questions what it means to find completion and emotional contentment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note that this chapter, specifically, is NOT CANON to "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds"

Eru Lee and Senju Tobirama, standing together on the little red bridge on the training ground, looking out of the water and towards the west where the sun was setting and glinting off the river water into their eyes.

 

They were an odd pair, too far apart in age, in family, in origin, even in time, to comfortably stay in each other’s presence if there wasn’t a real need to. They had very different lives, for all that they were connected.

 

One was a product of a foreign country and then of what had become of Hashirama’s village, the other of his brothers’ blood and ceaseless war with any and every clan who crossed their paths, there was a certain lack of connection that came with that.

 

Still, there they were, ignoring all of that and staring out together with equal disbelief and silence into the sunset.

 

“Perhaps, sometimes, the walls between universes are a little thinner than they should be.” Lee commented, not so much to her companion as to the air itself, “They say that twilight, sunset, is a time when it’s particularly thin. Where the demons, the ghosts, the dreams, the spirits, and the might-have-beens walk alongside us as if we never were separated in the first place.”

 

Tobirama said nothing, in his mind he had nothing to say, or rather there was nothing but that moment that he told himself shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did but could never quite bring himself to believe.

 

Tobirama was not a man for could-have-beens or might-have-beens, he couldn’t afford to be, and when he could, when he had the time to spare for an emotional breakdown fueled by sake, he spared it for Hashirama and the Konohagakure he had wanted and Tobirama had so desperately tried to make efficient and self-sufficient in his place.

 

If there was ever a thought it was, “I should have killed Madara sooner.”

 

Or else, “I should have killed Madara for him.”

 

Things like Uchiha Izuna or even Itama were locked far away, out of sight and out of mind, buried so deep that even he did not possess the means to unlock it.

 

Staring into the sunset on the river, watching as the sun set on this strange halfway world that he and Eru Lee had accidentally caught a glimpse of walking from Orochimaru’s laboratory, Tobirama’s eyes caught Madara’s face, the first face carved into the mountainside with Hashirama’s and Tobirama’s following behind, and watched as it fell into darkness and out of existence.

 

And so, in this place of bitter regret for all that could have been, Tobirama said slowly to a girl who had never seen the worlds he had, “Hashirama wanted him to be the first hokage.”

 

Lee looked up at him, the sun casting a warm red glow on half of her face, and her eyes still somehow glowing in spite of it.

 

“I said no, and when he didn’t listen, I said that there should be a vote among the clans. I knew Hashirama would win. And so Madara wasn’t the shodaime hokage…”

 

Lee paused for a moment, contemplated this, and appeared to hesitate before saying, “Considering he invaded Konoha with a giant demon fox, you probably made the right decision.”

 

Tobirama offered her the bitter smile, that nostalgic regretful thing, that he so rarely allowed himself, “Have I ever told you about the dream that my brother and Uchiha Madara once had, when they were only children with only one younger brother surviving?” He paused, look back out at the sunset, at the mountain range whose features were no longer visible, and said, “Its name was Konohagakure.”

 

* * *

 

This is not Senju Tobirama’s story of war, friendship, death, brothers, and what he believed was that final betrayal confirming every fear and doubt he had ever held regarding Uchiha Madara.

 

This is the story of the shodaime hokage’s, Uchiha Madara’s, world and how it might have happened.

 

* * *

 

“Goddammit.” She said this weakly, with a nauseating sense of déjà vu, the taste of almost death in her mouth and a buzzing sort of fuzziness in the back of her head. But she still had the ability to say, to think, therefore according to Descartes she was.

 

And, as always, she was desperately wishing she wasn’t.

 

However, this time she was not alone on a river bank, warmed by the sun, instead she was cold, staring up into a great black void that served as the roof of some lightless place, and of course the scent of trees growing in dark places beyond human sight.

 

(I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate…)

 

Turning her head she caught the eye of that grinning decrepit old man, looking as if he had just won some game between them, and she couldn’t help but feel more than a little insulted as well as beyond furious.

 

“Was it so difficult to simply let me die?” She asked, to which his grin grew, became a jagged almost inhuman thing.

 

“Waste not, want not, I’m afraid.” Madara quipped before rasping, “I enjoyed your speech though, for what it was worth, for the parts of it that were comprehensible.”

 

Which meant he had comprehended none of it, although some part of those words, the immortal words of replication on a rooftop in a ruined city at the end of his brief existence, had shaken the resolve he had previously shown her.

 

But Madara was perhaps too far gone for that sort of comprehension, at least, not until the very end, not until he truly had nothing left. He was only alive now because of his own will, his own unending hatred and pain, and without that he would surely die as he should have many years before.

 

“Well then, Uchiha-sama, what can I do for you?”

 

The man frowned at her, those spinning eyes narrowed, and were she human perhaps she would attempt to avoid staring at them directly, perhaps she would even be terrified, after all genjutsu was a type of death wasn’t it? To lose your memories, your sense of self, your will… But she was not afraid of purpose and she was not afraid of death, however artificial it might be.

 

“Do not sound as if it is a chore, child, a simple task that any beggar off the street could perform.”

 

Now it was her turn to frown, to look down at herself as if to gauge the potential that lay inside of her own replicated form, “Forgive me, Madara-sama, I was under the impression that I was nothing less than any beggar off the street.” 

 

Here he sneered, not quite denying it, but not going out of his way to confirm either, “Your purpose shall be much grander than that, my friend.”

 

She had one purpose, one which she had failed time and again already, she was not exactly eager to have another bestowed upon her. Much less by a man who appeared to be doing his upmost to be Konohagakure’s batman.

 

She had the distinct feeling that this comparison, as soon as she explained the nature of Gotham’s dark knight and his need to dress as a giant bat and fight crime, would upset him more than anything else she could possibly say.

 

And, ultimately, as a being created to reassure, bolster, and help others needless bickering and insults weren’t quite in her repertoire. So she stuffed that back down and held her tongue no matter how tempting it might be to call him plantman, the fallen knight of leaf.

 

He tilted her chin up, looked into her eyes until there was nothing left but those spinning, red, pinwheels.

 

“You, Eru Lee, will help me recreate the world.”

 

And the Emotional Support Lee that was now a thing of Vengence, Death, and Dreaming.

 

* * *

 

As time passed, her head healed, and Madara began to explain the true workings of the world and the only path to its salvation, she began to realize that Madara didn’t know quite what he wanted. He thought he did, he certainly planned it well enough, but what he had revealed through pinwheels to her was not what he whispered to her in the depths of the earth.

 

The eye of the moon and the sharingan, he said, the nine bijuu, he continued, finishing with, there is a boy named Uzumaki Nagato in Ame. His words were detailed, precise, such that even his own death and resurrection by Nagato’s or else her own hand was planned out. All, costs, all deaths, went into this goal, the perfect unbreakable vision, the world that did not exist.

 

A world, the being that was once Emotional Support Lee thought, that could not possibly contain true people inside of it.

 

She would have thought that it would be the Eye of the Moon, a heavy pinwheeled red thing, that would stare back at her from the inside of her now tampered head. It wasn’t.

 

Beneath the genjutsu, beneath the glamor and the orders, and the moon’s eye staring down, down, down on them all was that same initial order, that thing which had breathed her into existence and said, “You are replication. You are purpose, defined, structure, then nothing more and less.”

 

Emotional Support still existed, still burned inside of her, but never the less that wasn’t what Madara had so eagerly bestowed on her.

 

No, what he wanted more than loyalty, more than his specific plan, more than his false world even, was the could have been that he didn’t quite believe in.

 

Somewhere in those pinwheels, in the shadows between the red, always spinning, was the memory of two boys beside a river, skipping stones, the shades of their too young younger brothers standing behind them, and saying, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could build a place where we wouldn’t bury our brothers?”

 

It was their memories, their names, IZUNA IZUNA IZUNA IZUNA, screaming inside of her head.

 

So she sat, she listened, she nodded her head, she said, “Yes, I will go find the boy in rain, I will see that he does what he must when the time comes.”

 

She repeated, “Yes, I will collect the bijuu, even if it destroys thousands, even if it plunges the world into war, this world is war, any attempt to pretend differently is delusion.”

 

And she insisted, “I will bring you back and you will create whatever peace means to you.”

 

And she made nice with the men made from plants, even when they leered, even when, looking at her looking at them, she had the distinct feeling that perhaps they had far too much in common, perhaps they both had masters other than the ones they prescribed to.

 

But she repeated as a parrot or a dog might repeat, and in the meantime her own mind was spinning, that mission (IZUNA IZUNA IZUNA IZUNA) pounding like the drums of war inside of her own head, that relentless rhythm never quite overtaking the burn of emotional support but certainly in harmony with it.

 

These were the conclusions that the clone of Lee and slave of Madara drew for herself:

 

The eye of the moon plan was a false, cheap, imitation of happiness and enlightenment. To enslave the human race to a single man’s desperate vision of peace would not save Uchiha Madara.

 

Second, there was only one path to salvation for Uchiha Madara, for true happiness that was not tinged with regret. It would not be meeting paradoxically younger Senju Hashirama in the field of battle, hearing what the Senju, perhaps his only true friend, could say to convince him that there was at least some part of life worth living. Perhaps he might find some contentment in that, but his past would overwhelm him like a shadow, and he would embrace death far too freely.

 

He had gone too far to turn back now.

 

No, she needed the Madara that might have been, the one that could have been. The one that would have been if not for… IZUNA IZUNA IZUNA IZUNA.

 

Of course, this was almost as impossible as teaching Orochimaru the true meaning of friendship, and she would have killed herself right then and there if it wasn’t for that small glimmer of hope, that idea.

 

Eru Lee, the true Eru Lee, the one Madara no doubt had wanted in the first place when he’d contented himself with one of her infinite supplies of clones.

 

Eru Lee who was God in all but name.

 

So finally, finally when he let himself die, when he looked to her again with those eyes and said, “You will bring me back” (his eyes still screaming IZUNA IZUNA IZUNA IZUNA), she nodded, gripped his hand, and started for Rain country before doubling back for Konoha with Zetsus on her trail.

 

And as she zigzagged her way through the rain, the mud, the jungles, and the forests, setting traps and burning all that would stop her, all who either followed Madara’s agenda too closely or some other unnamed master, she kept her eye towards the Village Hidden in the Leaves and the one chance she had there.

 

Even if she had to reenact Predator without a chopper or Arnold Schwarzenegger she would do it. After all, to a clone, this was simple, purpose or death and nothing in between.

 

It was almost like coming home.

 

* * *

 

Outside the gates of Konoha, chakra damped as far as she could go, breath heavy, one eye always cast backwards for a stray bit of white or black and yellow inhuman eyes.

 

And finally, after days of leaving then coming and leaving again, waiting outside in the dark for her chance, there they were.

 

Team seven, leaving on a C-ranked mission, none of them looking particularly thrilled about it.

 

“There’s going to be plant zombies.” Eru Lee said, a rather petulant look on her face, and narrowed eyes directed at Jiraiya.

 

Jiraiya didn’t twitch, not visibly, but he did allow a somewhat sheepish and alarmed expression to cross his face, “You know, I’m just going to be optimistic here and say that we’re not going to be ambushed by plant zombies. Because, I really can’t handle that again, and I don’t want to either.”

 

“Why wouldn’t there be plant zombies, there were last time!”

 

“Yeah, but every other time I have been on a mission, in almost every country on the map, I have not seen or even heard of plant zombies. This is a very new and alarming thing, that no one else seems to have a problem with.” Jiraiya responded, sheepishly, his eyes darting around almost unwillingly, perhaps looking for Zetsu as well, and then he sped up almost unconsciously.

 

She kept pace with them, her eyes on the foliage, always looking for that barely visible Zetsu in the corner of her eye, while she simultaneously listened to them bicker at each other. While her chakra was suppressed she still noted how Jiraiya’s eyes narrowed in her direction, how Minato followed his stare and Lee did too, not quite willing to act on it but certainly on guard.

 

Then, there it was, that glimpse of white, she rolled back, onto the street, chakra blazing, watching as it came after her. Only for it to spontaneously combust before it could stab through her with mokuton as the others had tried before.

 

She slowly, along with the others, turned her eyes to Eru Lee who was holding both hands out in front of her, looking more than a little frazzled.

 

Then all of them, including Lee, turned their attentions to her.

 

She held up a hand, slowly, and said, “I come in peace.”

 

* * *

 

“So, wait a minute, you’re that clone who jumped in the river?!”

 

Halfway to team seven’s destination, in a small inn room, the five of them had gathered on the beds to listen to her story and her desperate plea for salvation. However, they kept getting caught up in the pointless details.

 

Haru, it seemed, was not quite as emotionally supported as she’d hoped he’d been when she left him.

 

“Wait, what? I didn’t know one of my clones jumped in the river.” Lee said, looking honestly a bit confused by all of this.

 

“You mean you don’t keep track of them?” And there was Jiraiya, alarmed at the thought of the countryside potentially swarming with replications of Eru Lee.

 

“I… But… I thought you died!” Haru said, paling, and looking almost on the verge of a breakdown. Which… She hadn’t meant for that, truly, she had thought she told him what he needed.

 

It seemed she’d blundered at that as well.

 

“Oh, I tried very hard.” She said, with a sigh, honestly still a little bitter about all of that. Of course she had a new (sort of) purpose (IZUNA) which she supposed was better than the madness that was Orochimaru’s friendship prospects.

 

“So then what did happen?” This was Minato, always to the point, always focusing on what needed to be focused on. They, the clones, as an extension of Lee herself, always had the highest respect for Namikaze Minato. Even if he was a thing not to be touched.

 

“I washed up on the river bank and was saved by a kind young man. I then wandered the wilderness hoping to get devoured by bears where no one would intervene. Unfortunately, I was instead kidnapped by Uchiha Madara and coereced into doing his bidding.”

 

The room was silent, none of them moved, they barely even blinked.

 

Then, “Um, did you just say you were kidnapped by Uchiha Madara? As in the Uchiha Madara?”

 

“Is there more than one?” She asked, eyebrows raised, to which Jiraiya paled and gritted his teeth probably thinking that one was more than enough. His eyes then darted to the stationary in the room, probably thinking that he would have to write the hokage, or at least send some message back to verify that Madara was well and truly dead.

 

Haru still seemed caught on the fact that she had thrown herself off of a bridge.

 

“Madara? He must be ridiculously old.” Lee pointed out, of all of them perhaps the one able to come to grips with this easiest, as even Minato looked somewhat shaken.

 

“He has survived by living in a cave and leeching energy from the gedo mazo, a container from the outer path.”

 

Jiraiya actually stood, grabbed the stationary and pen from the desk, and then sat back down staring at her blankly.

 

“…I don’t think I wanted to know that.” Lee said, paling slightly before asking, “So, uh, what has Madara been up to anyways?”

 

“He plans to capture the bijuu, create an eternal genjutsu over the world, and trap us all in an idyllic illusion that can’t be achieved in reality.” She paused, glanced at them, and admitted, “I wasn’t entirely sure I understood the plan either, to be honest.”

 

“Wait, so he wants to put a giant genjutsu over the giant genjutsu… Has he done it already?! Is that why things are so weird?” Lee asked, looking more affronted than alarmed, green eyes narrowed and irritation practically rolling off her.

 

“Lee, we are not stuck in a giant…” Minato started, face flushed, eyes narrowed, irritated out of his own panic.

 

Lee interrupted before he can even finish, “There are many reasons why it’s perfectly reasonable that Madara’s already pulled the crazy eternal genjutsu plan. There are many in this conversation alone, let’s look at the facts. One, Madara has been living in a cave forever, eating a demonic statue, pretending to be batman, and apparently planning to trap us all in a giant illusion. Two, in order to get us into a giant illusion Madara is capturing all of the giant chakra monsters. And three, plant zombies.”

 

“The plant zombies have nothing to do with…” Minato started only for the clone, herself, to interrupt.

 

“The zetsus work for Madara, or at least, present themselves as working for Madara.”

 

They all fell silent, looked at each other, then at her, then at Jiraiya who had written nothing down so far but was just staring at her blankly along with the rest of them.

 

Finally, Jiraiya said, “Alright squirts, as soon as we deliver this letter we are hauling ass back to Konoha double time.”

 

“You’re not writing him?” Minato asked, tearing himself away from simply staring to question Jiraiya.

 

Jiraiya moved back to the desk, rapidly scribbling, and scoffed, “Oh, I am writing, but even encrypted sensei is going to assume I’m high as a kite.”

 

Meanwhile Lee exclaimed, “You mean this whole time Madara has been trying to assassinate me, via plants?!”

 

They were getting distracted, Lee with her external panicking, Minato with his more internal panicking, Haru somewhere in between, and Jiraiya furiously writing, and as he wrote she realized that the time was now.

 

Jiraiya would never let her be alone with Lee, not if she claimed to be working for Madara, to have been with Madara and under the mangekyo sharingan. And she must speak with Lee, must plead for a miracle, or else there was no reason for her to exist in the first place.

 

“Madara is dead, he died a few weeks ago, he was simply waiting for someone to carry out his plans in his absence. I… I did not come because he ordered me to.” She came for him, because of him, but not because he thought he wanted it.

 

Jiraiya stopped writing, cast a wary eye back towards her, fingers becoming loose in the way that spoke of hand seals yet to come. She stiffened, eyed those calloused jonin hands, and continued, “I need… I need help, from you Lee, just one favor and then I’ll be gone forever and you’ll never have to deal with me, or Madara again.”

 

She fell to her knees crawled to the bed where Lee was sitting on, and clutched at her hands, “I need to travel back in time, I need to go back to the warring clans period, when Senju Hashirama made his offer to Madara and he almost accepted. I need to go before Izuna dies, I need to be there…”

 

“No!” Jiraiya interrupted, throwing down the pen, looking back at them all and Lee specifically, “Don’t even think about it!”

 

Lee hesitated, looked directly at her haggard clone, still wearing the worn clothing from all those months ago, “You want to… Wouldn’t that cause a paradox?”

 

She gripped Lee’s hands tighter, “Would you rather face whatever illusion Madara has in store for us all?”

 

She stared up at Lee, only Lee, the only one in this room could help her now, “Please, this is all that he is, all that he can be; and because of that it’s the only thing I can be too. Please, Lee-sama, grant me completion.”

 

“No, seriously, I’m pretty sure this could break the universe. Like, it’s stretched pretty damn thin as it is… I really don’t think that we should just play around…”

 

“It is already breaking and you know it!” She stopped herself from saying more, just stared, willing to relay all that she was (IZUNA) all that she was supposed to do to this being who seemed so indifferent to her own creations.

 

And something in Eru Lee then understood.

 

Eru Lee gripped her hands back, the room began spinning, the light disappeared, flowed backwards, out of sight and to its point of origin, and Lee’s emotional supportive (IZUNA) clone fell with it.

 

And as everything she knew faded, the unforgiving cruel world that had never once shown her any true sense of hope, she smiled.

 

* * *

 

Tobirama Senju, appearing from nothingness with a kunai in his hand, found himself not striking through Uchiha Izuna’s skin but instead that of a young, red headed girl, both men watched as she staggered forward, bleeding, and stared up at the sky with a strangely bitter sweet smile.

 

“Isn’t the world beautiful?”

**Author's Note:**

> Someone asked what happened to the ESL who jumped off the bridge that one time.
> 
> Thanks for reading, comments, kudos, and bookmarks are greatly appreciated.


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